


Vagabond

by oofohwell



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Protective Tony Stark, Tony Stark Has A Heart, What if Peter Blamed Himself?, What if he ran away from it all?, What if people died?, What if the Staten Island Ferry Incident ended much worse?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-14 21:52:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15398274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oofohwell/pseuds/oofohwell
Summary: Since the bite, Peter had been revered as somewhat of a local celebrity in his community. Well, Spider-Man, not him.Hero, that’s what he was called by the news outlets, by the daily papers. God bless the hero of Queens, Spider-Man.That was Spider-Man. Peter Parker was an entirely different story.Peter Parker was the kid who messed up so badly that someone died.





	1. Not a Hero

Since the bite, Peter had been revered as somewhat of a local celebrity in his community. Well, Spider-Man, not him.  
Hero, that’s what he was called by the news outlets, by the daily papers. God bless the hero of Queens, Spider-Man.

That was Spider-Man. Peter Parker was an entirely different story.  
Peter Parker was that weird kid who build lego sets. Who wears clearly secondhand clothing. That nerd on the decathlon team. Flash’s latest victim. Wimpy. Weak. Worthless. 

It was Peter Parker who sat on the rooftop overlooking New York Harbor. Smoke pillowed into the air as rescue boats paddled to the nearly-wrecked Staten Island Ferry, avoiding debris scattered throughout the water.  
It was Peter Parker who had messed up, who had watched the piece of alien tech split the tech in two. It was him who was only 98% successful, who had attempted to hold the boat together as his muscles began to tear and heal simultaneously. Peter Parker had failed.  
Guilt and shame surged through Peter as he surveyed the scene before him, his mask pulled off and in his hands. At this point, he didn’t care if anyone saw his face, if his identity was revealed to the public. They would see him for what he really was. Weak. Worthless.  
His ears picked up the familiar sound of engine thrusters even before he saw the suit fly up next to him, the red and gold metal gleaming all-too-brightly in the sunset.  
“Previously on Peter-Screws-the-Pooch, I tell you to stay away from this.” The suit came to a hover behind him, Tony Stark’s voice blaring out in a stiffer and angrier version of his usual sarcastic tone. “Instead, you hacked a multi-million dollar suit so you could sneak around my back doing the one thing I told you not to do.”  
The teenager stared at his feet, blinking tears of shame out of his eyes.  
“Is everyone okay?” His voice rasped as turned his head sideways.  
“No, Peter. Everyone is not okay. Two people are confirmed dead, seven others in critical condition. The rest are on their way to the hospital or are safe- no thanks to you.” Every syllable bit further and further into Peter. Dead. Two people dead. Because of him.  
“I was just trying to help, those weapons were out there and I tried to tell you about it. But you didn’t listen. None of this would have happened if you had just listened to me! If you even cared, you’d actually be here.” He suddenly found himself on his feet, his voice raised a pitch higher than he would have liked as he scrambled to explain himself.  
The suit opened up to reveal the billionaire, his face steely. Peter stumbled back as the man took a step forwards, narrowing the gap between them.  
“You don’t get to pin this on me. I did listen, kid. Who do you think called the FBI, huh?” Tony poked an accusatory finger into the teen’s chest, right in the center of the spider symbol on his suit. “Do you know that I was the only one who believed in you? Everyone else was right when they said I was crazy to recruit fourteen-year-old kid.”  
Peter felt like the life had been sucked out of him. He didn’t bother to correct the older man, that he was actually fifteen. He stayed silent, head hung down. Weak.  
“Two people died tonight. That’s on you. And if you died…” He felt the man grasp him tightly by his shoulders. “...I feel like that’s on me.”  
“I’m sorry,” Peter mumbled, worried if he spoke up the dam which held back the tears in his eyes would break.  
“Tell that to the families. Not to me.”  
“I just- I just wanted to be like you.” He clenched his fists around the fabric of his mask in his hands and bit his lip until it bled and instantly began to heal.  
“And I wanted you to be better. Well, its not working out. You can’t handle the responsibility. I’m going to need the suit back.”  
Peter’s head snapped up, astonished. A knot worked its way up to his throat, settling there.  
“For how long?”  
“Forever.”  
At that, the dam burst and any resolve Peter had managed to maintain burst. He was crying, bawling his eyes out in front of Iron Man. If it were any other time, he might have managed to feel embarrassed. He felt the strong grip return to his shoulders before he was pulled into a tentative hug. His hands latched onto the lapels of Tony’s suit as his tears stained the material that was likely worth thousands of dollars.  
“Please. Please don’t.” He begged between sobs and hiccups. “It’s all I have. I’m nothing without this suit.”  
“If you’re nothing without this suit, then you shouldn’t have it, okay?” Stark pulled away before sighing heavily. “God, I sound like my dad. Look, Pete, I wish I could tell you it would be alright. Just give me the suit. Go back to school, to your aunt, to your normal life.”  
Peter sniffed. “I don’t have any other clothes.”  
“We’ll sort that out. Now put your mask back on, we don’t want anyone to see your face.”  
Nothing would be “normal” again.

The rest of the day muddled past in a blur. The walk up to his apartment. Explaining to Aunt May. Lying, telling her he lost the Stark Internship. Breaking down again. He couldn’t even tell her the whole truth.  
He got into the shower only after she insisted, telling him he, “smelled like garbage”. Cranking the water to the coldest setting, he ignored the scream of his skin and amplified senses and instead stood there shivering. He didn’t deserve any warmth. He was pathetic. Weak.  
The water poured over his sweaty head, its iciness making him feel feverish. He just stood there, trembling, until his vision flashed with images of water rushing into the ferry, ears ringing of the screaming as people and cars were swept up in the flood. Panic gripped like a vice around his throat as he suddenly felt as if he couldn’t breathe, as if he was drowning. Was that the last thing the two that died felt?  
Suddenly he was on the bathroom floor, spluttering and coughing as he hyperventilated. Two people were dead. Seven more critically injured. Countless others traumatized. He imagined the family members, the mothers, the fathers, the children, the siblings. Wondering why their hero Spider-Man didn’t save them from this pain. Peter barely managed to crawl to the bowl of the toilet before he heaved and gagged.  
He was no hero.  
Just a weak kid from Queens. 

A soft knock came at the door.  
“Peter, honey, you okay?” Aunt May’s muffled voice travelled through the wood, laced with worry.  
“I’m fine,” he managed back. The teenager dragged himself up to the sink and rinsed water through his mouth, attempting to get the taste of bile off of his tongue. It wouldn’t work. His heightened sense of taste came with its downsides.  
He stared at his reflection in the mirror. Bloodshot, red-rimmed eyes stared back underneath a mop of dripping hair which was plastered to his forehead. He wanted nothing more than to reach through the mirror, to strangle the image and all of its patheticness and push it away from him.  
Instead, he wiped his mouth and flushed the toilet and shut his mind off as he dressed himself and stumbled out of the bathroom into his bedroom.

By the time May came around and knocked on his door, the sky had gotten considerably darker. Peter wasn’t sure how much time had passed, though. He didn’t care.  
“Pete, what do you want for dinner? Takeout sound okay?” His Aunt entered the room hesitantly and attempted to peter through the darkness to make out the form of her nephew lying on the bed.  
“I’m not hungry.” That was a lie. He was ravenous. But he couldn’t stomach eating now. Or maybe ever again.  
“Everything okay?”  
“Yeah, everything’s fine. I’m just tired.” Another lie. Just one of many he told today.  
“Are you sure? Is there anything you want to talk-”  
“May, I’m fine.” He cut her off, tone a little harsher than he intended. “Really.”  
His stomach then growled far too loudly for either of them to ignore. May crossed the small space in between the doorway and the bed and lightly ran her fingers through Peter’s curls before laying a kiss on the top of his head.  
“Okay, we don’t have to talk about anything. But you have to eat. I’m not taking no for an answer.”

They sat at the table in silence, Peter chewing through his orange chicken and finding himself unable to swallow. The TV played in the background to cover up the quietness, the teen mostly tuning out the majority of political correspondents arguing and commercials about erectile dysfunction. That was, until May grabbed the remote and turned the volume up as a new segment caught her eye.  
“Welcome back to WHiH news at nine. I’m Christine Everhart and today on Special Edition Newsfront we’re bringing you the latest updates on the Staten Island Ferry Tragedy.”  
“Oh my god,” May gasped, causing Peter to turn around and freeze at the clips flooding the screen before him. Images of rescue boats pulling people off the ship and out of the water, as well as emergency responders performing triage illuminated the room.  
“Current reports have five patients still in critical condition at New York Community Hospital, with two others now stable and are set to be discharged later this week. Darryl Stamper was one of the two casualties, a rare-weapons smuggler who was fatally shot by the FBI as he attempted to fire at them. The other, local student Donald Bennett.”  
Everything else in the room went dark as Peter’s eyes focused on the picture of a teenager, likely only around two years older than him. Despite the smile on the boy’s face, his dark eyes bored accusingly into the fifteen-year-old’s. Blood pounded in Peter’s ears and he suddenly felt dizzy.  
“Bennett was at the top of his class at Bayside High School and was set to go to Stanford University, accepted under early admission. A true role model and hero to those around him.” The reporter continued on, barely fazed that she was speaking about a life lost, a bright mind gone.  
“Oh, that’s awful. His poor family,” May breathed. The nausea suddenly became overpowering. Peter nearly jumped out of his seat, accidentally shoving the table forwards in the process.  
“May, I don’t feel good.” He shut his eyes as waves of dizziness and guilt overcame him. Before he could fully process what was happening, he was doubled over the kitchen sink, his Aunt rubbing reassuring circles into his back.  
Once the room stopped spinning, he let his aunt press her hand against his forehead. Her skin felt cool and he leaned slightly into her comforting touch.  
“Well, you’re a little warm, but you don’t have a fever just yet. You’re staying home tomorrow.”  
“But May, I-”  
“No ‘but’s. You haven’t missed a day of school ever, you can give yourself this. Plus, we don’t want you puking all over Liz now, do we?” She teased, mussing with his hair before frowning at his inability to smile. Still, she didn’t push the issue further, just guided the teen to his bed.  
Peter didn’t even try to protest as she tucked him in as if he were still a child, sighing in relief as a cold rag was placed onto his forehead. It did little to alleviate the sick feeling stuck in his gut. He settled in further as he heard the door softly click closed behind May and tried his best to fall asleep amidst the tossing and turning. Words echoed in his head.  
“If you’re nothing without this suit, then you shouldn’t have it.”  
What if he was nothing, even with the suit?  
Peter Parker was not a hero, no.  
He was weak.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all/anyone who cared to read this far!!  
> I decided to write this after seeing IW yet again and getting hurt by it yet again.  
> Thank you so much for reading!  
> Any comments/suggestions are appreciated, I'll be updating again soon.  
> 


	2. Sleepless Nights

If Peter had known that the dreams he would encounter while sleeping would be worse than the thoughts he had while awake, he would have never gotten into his bed that night. Dreams weren’t the right word to use to describe them, no. They were nightmares. Terrors.  
Startled upright in bed, he clutched his bedsheets to his chest and tried to ignore the crawling sensation of beads of sweat running down his legs. It was hard to breathe. Hard to think. Recollections of the night’s vision threw him into a deeper panic. 

_He was standing in a damp, frigid room. The darkness made it difficult to see more than two feet in front of him. Then, a flickering light ahead illuminated the silhouette of a man. Peter recognized that posture, the slumped shoulders which appeared to carry the weight of the world._  
_“You disappointed me, Peter.” The man turned his head._  
_“Mr. Stark, I’m so sorry I-”_  
_“Donald Bennet. 17. His death is on your hands. No apology will change that,” Tony curtly cut off Peter’s rambling, holding a hand up to silence him._  
_“I only wanted to help- to make a difference,” Peter futilely tried to defend himself despite knowing what the older man was saying to be true.  
“Well, you sure made a difference in his life. He died, on your watch, while you were too busy kicking ass to notice."_

__

The fifteen-year-old stumbled out of bed. His mouth was painfully dry, his throat feeling as if it were about to close up. Part of him wished it would.  
Water. That’s what he needed. He stumbled over to the sink in the tiny kitchen and shakily grabbed a glass, putting it under the tap. The metallic taste of the drink spread over his tongue, all too similar to the tang of blood. 

_“I put a multi-million dollar suit into the hands of a teenager. Those turned out to be the wrong hands. So I’m shutting this whole thing down. No more Spider-Man.”_  
_“Sir, please, just let me make this right!”_  
_“Make this right? There is no making this right. Ask his family, they’ll tell you there is no making this right. The best thing you can do for everyone else is just disappear.”_  
_It was only then Peter realized what the light illuminating his idol was- a fire. Burning brighter and brighter, it filled his vision. He watched, helplessly as Tony Stark threw his suit into the flames, watching the fabric burn to ash. The teen dove forwards, desperately trying to seize handfuls of the tech and searing his palms in the process._  
_Suddenly, it was as if the floor had disappeared and been replaced with the cold waters of the bay. Hands tugged at him, pulling him under._  
_“Mr. Stark, help!” He begged. The man just stood there, watching, hands stiffly in his pockets._  
_His mouth was frozen open in a silent scream. The surface of the water became more and more distant. This was it. He closed his eyes._  
_Maybe he deserved to die._  
_Maybe he deserved to disappear._  


Peter forced the vision out of his head and held the glass to his lips once more. His hands shook. His lip trembled. Before he knew it, he was sliding against the kitchen counters towards the floor.  
He killed someone. He killed someone. He killed someone.  


__

__

The chant echoed through his head as he tried to stifle his desperate gasps for air. He didn’t want to wake May. Well, really all he wanted was to run into her arms, like a child. To confess. To have her tell him everything would be okay.  
God, he was so weak.  
The teen wrapped an arm around his knees and pulled them into his chest, attempting to curl into himself.  
After he somehow caught his breath, Peter shakily rose and washed the glass which he had managed to set on the counter before collapsing. He lumbered back into his room and fell backwards onto his bed, staring at the bunk above him.  
He reached for the phone on his nightstand, its far-too bright screen illuminating the small room and causing him to wince. The time read 2:17 a.m.  
Ned had sent him over twenty texts, all of which Peter scrolled through and ignored. He didn’t have the energy to respond right now.  
“Dude, you skipped detention???”  
“You’re so gonna get expelled.”  
“‘Liz is gonna freak if you’re not at practice today.”  
“Where are you?”  
“Are you okay?”  
“Peter?”  
“I saw the news. Are you alright?”  
He tossed his phone to the side with a huff and ran his fingers through his hair before burying his face in his hands, pressing into his eyes.  
He wasn’t going to sleep tonight. He wasn’t sure if he was going to sleep ever again.

Tony Stark was used to sleepless nights.  
Some nights he would go down to the lab, tinker for a few hours. Build and tear apart new inventions, new suits.  
The nights Pepper was gone he would turn to the occasional crutch of liquor, downing a nightcap or seven. Well, probably more than seven. At that point he normally blacked out.  
Tonight, he did neither. Instead, he sat at his kitchen counter pouring over files. Or rather, just one file.  
Donald Bennett. The report of his death, the circumstances and where the blame was placed. He had called the police commissioner earlier to make sure none of this would be pinned on Peter, on Spider-Man.  
Tony knew that none of this was the kid’s fault. He was just that- a kid.  
An extremely stubborn kid at that, but the billionaire couldn’t fault him for trying to do the right thing. He would have done the same.  
If anything, this was Tony’s fault for enabling him, for giving him the suit in the first place. Maybe if he had gotten there even a few seconds earlier, he would have been able to prevent any casualties, any deaths.  
He read through the file, forcing himself to open the autopsy report. Donald Bennett had drowned, stuck between two cars on the lower level of the ferry after the initial blast of the stolen alien tech. That meant that even if Peter had managed to fully hold the boat together with his webs, the other teen wouldn’t have made it anyways.  
Tony had watched the footage from Peter’s suit, watched as the kid had frantically tried to string the two halves of the vessel together, watched as he attempted to keep it from falling apart with his own two arms. The kid’s anguished cries from that moment continued to echo through his head. If Tony had tried that, he was sure his arms would have been ripped off in an instant.  
A hand delicately fell upon his shoulder, causing him to jump and inhale so fast he nearly choked. He whirled around on the barstool to see the CEO of Stark Industries standing behind him, a sad smile ghosting her lips.  
“You should be in bed,” Pepper told him, the sternness in her voice making it sound more like a command than a suggestion. Tony took her hand from his shoulder and placed a kiss on the back of her knuckles.  
“I know. I’m sorry, Pep, I just-”  
“Can’t sleep.” The redhead interjected, finishing his sentence. This scene was one they played out on repeat, more nights than they could count. “I know. Is it Peter?”  
“You know me so well,” mused Tony. He pinched the bridge of his nose, attempting to relieve the pressure which had gathered there as a result of the day’s stress.  
“How is he doing?” Pepper took a seat on the stool next to him, looking over the papers in front of her with a furrowed brow. “It’s just awful. I hope he doesn’t blame himself.”  
“He probably does. And it’s probably my fault, I said some things I shouldn’t have.”  
“Oh, god Tony. Like what?” A hint of exasperation laced itself into her voice.  
“Well, he tried to explain what he did. Rationalize it, tell me that it was my fault for not listening, I said he couldn’t turn this around on me and that it was his responsibility.”  
“He was probably in shock! You’re supposed to be the adult in this situation.”  
“I know.” Tony looked at his hands, fixed in his lap.”I just- I just looked at him. And I saw myself. In 2008. After I learned about Obadiah and the weapons program. The lives that were lost. Because of me.”  
“And then,” he continued, taking a shaky breath. “He told me he wanted to be like me. And I realized I couldn’t let him. He deserves better than to be like me. He deserves a normal life, without guilt like this on his conscience. I took away his suit, Pep. Like it was no big deal, like I was just grounding him or something. I can’t let him put himself into that sort of danger ever again.”  
“Okay,” Pepper breathed, leaning over slightly to rub circles into his back. She stood up and fixed her nightgown before turning to head back to bed. “Call him tomorrow, to see how he’s doing. I bet he needs it, Tony.”  
Tony watched her go out of the corner of his eye, sighing as he thought about what she told him to do. What could he possibly do to help the kid? He was a mess himself, wracked with guilt about the lives lost under his own watch. It was inescapable, sometimes. Death. That didn’t keep him from blaming himself though.  
He saw their faces every night when he closed his eyes. He would obsess over reports after each mission, the casualties. He would send anonymous donations to the families, clean up areas using his own resources- but none of it helped.  
He would do everything in his power to spare Peter from feeling any more of that pain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a shorter chapter, but I wanted to update this as soon as I could.  
> So far, I'm going to try updating this at least once or twice a week, but that could change when school starts up again.  
> Thanks for reading!


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